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From the Los Angeles Times

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The stage is too big for kids

Social media can turn private growth into public spectacle.

by Sandy Banks

April 2, 2011

As if parents don't have enough to worry about, with cyber-bullying and online perverts, now the nation's pediatricians are adding "Facebook depression" to the list of maladies stalking our kids.

According to a report released this week by the American Academy of Pediatrics, doctors may add a new trio of cringe-inducing questions to their screening checklist for teenage patients: "Are you on Facebook? How many friends do you have? And how does that make you feel?"

Apparently, kids with poor self-esteem can be pitched into depression by the perception that everyone on Facebook is having more fun that they are. They become obsessed with others' status updates and friend tallies. Some withdraw and lose interest in socializing; others try to court popularity by taking desperate measures to impress others.

Doctors feel the need to get involved because so many parents go to them "concerned about their children's engagement with social media."

I'm not surprised at that concern. Every day, it seems, we hear some frightening story about teenagers sexting or online harassment or someone's humiliating YouTube horror.

The doctors suggest that children spend less time online and that parents bone up by spending more.

The risks to kids rest in parents' ignorance, the report in the journal Pediatrics says. "They frequently do not have the technical abilities or time needed to keep pace with their children in the ever-changing Internet landscape."

Parents ought to work on the "participation gap" in their homes by becoming better-educated about the technologies that their children worship.

I think the doctors are missing the point. Figuring out how to upload a video of a singing dog isn't going to keep my kids safer.

The problem is neither the fancy gadgets and social networks, nor a lack of parental knowledge and control. It's more a reflection of the cultural shift that has both teens and adults in its thrall.

And it's getting harder to avoid. You grow up watching "Jersey Shore" or Googling "Kim Kardashian" and you just might think that texting a nude photo of yourself to a boy is about as risque as, say, flashing a glimpse of her thong underwear was to Monica Lewinsky, once our notion of "harlot."

I'm lucky; my daughters are old enough to keep social media in perspective. But I called a therapist I trust — she's counseled adolescents for 30 years — to ask what she thinks of Facebook depression.

She's seen teenagers "devastated" by their Facebook friends' actions and comments, psychologist Veronica Thomas told me.

It was bad enough back in the day to be the lone kid not invited to Jerry's bar mitzvah. You might ease the sting by faking an illness on Monday so you wouldn't have to hear everyone at school talking about it. Now you'll probably spend party night alone and morose, scrolling through Facebook updates and cellphone photos — stuck with an in-your-face reminder of what a social failure you are.

What social networking has done is not just amplify the pain and raise the stakes but also recalibrate the dimensions of friendship. "It makes the quantity of friends and contacts seem much more important than the quality," she said.

The process of collecting "friends" online, instead of cultivating intimacy over time, can stunt the emotional growth of teens and deprive them of healthy social outlets, she said. "You feel validated because you have 500 friends. But you may not have anybody you can really expose yourself to."

Remember, Facebook started seven years ago as an outlet for college students. Now kids sign up in middle school, inviting people they barely know into what once was a private journey.

"Teenagers try on so many personalities in the process of growing up," she said. That's much harder to do onstage, to have the process chronicled in Facebook postings and witnessed by a bevy of virtual strangers.

Others' expectations can become your perception, Thomas said. "You're locked into living up to your Facebook persona. You don't learn what goes into building friendship … talking, disclosing, seeing how things evolve, fighting, forgiving, getting over it."

Without that private give and take, children can grow into adults without fully understanding the notion of friendship, she said.

Which might explain former UCLA student Alexandra Wallace.

That parody of geeky Asian kids? It might draw laughs from your buddies at a dorm room party. They know you're a good person, just mouthing off; they'll forgive your cultural blind spot. But it's not so funny when you get dolled up and act it out on YouTube for millions of others.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks-20110402,0,6660516,print.column

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Nation's quake-warning systems need work, scientists say

Scientists are working on a system in California to improve earthquake forecasts and warnings, but it could be jeopardized by federal budget cuts.

by Eryn Brown

April 1, 2011

Americans have been lulled into a false sense of security that they are prepared for a devastating earthquake, according to a report issued Wednesday by the National Research Council.

Among other recommendations, the report's 20-year "road map" for preparedness -- which was in the works long before a magnitude 9 quake hit Japan on March 11 -- calls on the U.S. to beef up earthquake research and improve forecasts and warning systems.

In California, scientists are five years into work on just the type of early-warning system the report endorses. The prototype system passed early tests with aplomb, successfully detecting the 2007 Alum Rock and 2008 Chino Hills quakes, both magnitude 5.4 temblors, before people could feel them.

But even as the federal government peruses the 20-year action plan one of its agencies commissioned, the early-warning project may be halted -- because of cuts in the 2012 federal budget.

"It's not clear that they'll be able to continue funding this," said Richard Allen, a professor at UC Berkeley who works on the project. "We're living on the brink, in multiple ways."

California's earthquake early-warning system, still a work in progress, depends on a network of 400 seismic stations across the state. The stations house motion-sensing instruments called seismometers that send readings to central computers, which in turn determine when an earthquake is coming and how large it might be.

The system depends on earthquakes' emission of two types of shock waves: P waves, which don't cause violent shaking, and S waves, which do.

P waves travel twice as fast as S waves, so the computers use them to sense the shaking to come and predict an earthquake's likely size and location. Such a system could then zap warnings to end users -- companies operating machinery, emergency responders and others -- before the shaking begins.

If the system were developed, scientists said, Californians might receive word via television, cellphone or computer that at earthquake was coming -- giving users up to "tens of seconds" of warning before destructive shaking begins, depending where a quake originates. (People living closer to the epicenter get shorter notice than those who are farther away.)

Less than a minute of warning may not sound like much. But it's enough time for transit systems to halt trains, for building operators to stop elevators or for people to move under sturdy tables, UC Berkeley's Allen said.

Just being mentally ready for warning of an earthquake could confer advantages too. "There's a huge psychological value in preparedness," said Thomas H. Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at USC and a member of the committee that wrote the National Research Council report. "It's one thing if someone comes behind you and hits you on the head. It's another thing if you know you're going to get in a fight."

In Japan, where a national early-warning system has been in place since 2007, seismometers successfully detected the March 11 Tohoku quake and got warnings out across the country, said Masumi Yamada, a professor in the earthquake hazards division of Kyoto University in Japan.

YouTube videos from the moments before the quake hit show trains stopping before tremors begin and warning screens popping up on computers, complete with an earthquake countdown. Yamada, who helped write the algorithms that crunch the Japanese P-wave data, said Japanese media reported that 11 bullet trains in the Tohoku region were halted by the warning system. None derailed, and there were no injuries, she said.

The system did not perform perfectly, she added: It was not able to keep up with the large number of aftershocks, and it underestimated the intensity of some of the main quake's tremors. But it has continued detecting aftershocks in the three weeks since the initial event, and it issued warnings to Tokyo when a magnitude 6.2 aftershock rattled a seismically sensitive area southwest of the city on March 15.

California's early-warning system isn't nearly as robust, scientists said. Japan is blanketed with 1,000 seismic stations. California's 400 leave many regions undermonitored.

The state's software, also, is a work in progress. "We have the algorithms up and running, but it's prototype software that's strung together with duct tape," said Egill Hauksson, a geophysicist at Caltech. "This is nowhere close to being a reliable system."

What's more, Californians aren't as quake-savvy as the Japanese, who participate in regular drills and are conditioned to respond quickly. The National Research Council report called on American communities to increase preparedness through "earthquake resiliency pilot projects" that would raise awareness of earthquake risk and make sure citizens have the tools to address it.

Finishing California's early-warning system would cost about $50 million and then "a few tens of millions per year" to operate, Jordan said. Compared with what's spent annually by the Department of Homeland Security -- more than $40 billion -- that could be a bargain, he added.

In 2008, California conducted the Great Southern California Shakeout demonstration, a pretend magnitude 7.8 earthquake that was billed as the largest disaster drill ever in the state. Computer simulations estimated that a magnitude 7.8 quake on the San Andreas fault near the Salton Sea would cause 1,800 fatalities, more than $112 billion in property damage and nearly $60 billion in business interruption.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-earthquake-early-warning-20110402,0,4099003,print.story

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Serial killer John Floyd Thomas Jr., dubbed the Westside Rapist, is sentenced to life

John Floyd Thomas Jr., a career criminal, pleaded guilty to seven murders but is suspected in numerous other slayings.

by Victoria Kim, Andrew Blankstein and Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times

April 2, 2011

A former insurance claims adjuster who was suspected of terrorizing women in the 1970s as the Westside Rapist has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for seven murders that were committed in two waves of killings and sexual assaults.

John Floyd Thomas Jr., 74, sat with his hands manacled to a waist chain and used sheets of paper to shield his face from a photographer as he was sentenced for the killings that took place in a swath stretching from Inglewood to Claremont.

Detectives describe Thomas as one of the region's most prolific serial killers, saying that he remains a suspect in at least 10 to 15 additional slayings, based on the dates of the crimes and his method of killing.

"He has been my worst nightmare," said Tracy Michaels, who flew from Austin, Texas, to witness Friday's conclusion of a 35-year search for justice after her great-aunt, Elizabeth McKeown, was raped, strangled and stuffed in the trunk of her car. "For me the death penalty would've been too easy."

Michaels, who as a teenager lived with her great-aunt, asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli to "remove any comfort from this man's life.… Make the rest of his life feel like what he's made our lives feel like."

Police said the attacks targeted women who ranged in age from their 50s to their 90s, many of whom lived alone. The killer broke into their homes at night and raped and choked his victims until they passed out or died. Before he left, he would cover their faces with a pillow or blanket.

Thomas' sentence was part of a plea deal with prosecutors that Deputy Dist. Atty. Rachel Moser Greene described as "an act of pragmatism" rather than "an act of mercy."

She noted that capital punishment was not legal in California when all but one of the killings Thomas admitted to were committed. She said the death penalty would not have been relevant in this case because Thomas would probably die in prison during his appeals, given his age.

"This provides certainty and finality for surviving family members who lived with this for so long," Greene said.

Thomas was born in Los Angeles and was raised by an aunt and his godmother after his mother died when he was 12. He attended public schools, including Manual Arts High School, and briefly joined the U.S. Air Force in 1956.

At Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, a superior described him as often late and slovenly. He received a dishonorable discharge, according to his military records. The next year, he was convicted of burglary and attempted rape, which put him in prison for nearly a decade.

Shortly after his release, authorities noticed a string of assaults on elderly white women. The attacker was dubbed the Westside Rapist at the time.

Most of the victims Thomas admitted slaying were killed in the 1970s, including McKeown, 67, in Westchester in 1976; Ethel Sokoloff, 68, in the Mid-Wilshire area in 1972; Cora Perry in Lennox in 1975; Maybelle Hudson, 80, Miriam McKinley, 65, and Evalyn Bunner, all in 1976 in Inglewood.

The attacks appeared to stop in 1978, when Thomas was convicted and sentenced to prison for the rape of a Pasadena woman. After his release in 1983, he moved to Chino, coinciding with a wave of rapes and killings that began in the Pomona Valley area.

Among Thomas' victims was Adrienne Askew, 56, who was found strangled in 1986 in her Claremont apartment.

About two years earlier, the body of her 85-year-old mother, Isabel, had been found in a vineyard near Ontario International Airport. The two women had shared an apartment. Authorities were never able to determine a cause of death for Isabel because of the condition of her body. Police officials suspect that she might also have been one of Thomas' victims but say investigators may never be able to prove a link.

In a statement read in court by the prosecutor Friday, Adrienne Askew's niece described Thomas as "a sadistic predator who preyed on the vulnerable."

Susanne Askew Livingston wrote that her aunt worked as a school crossing guard and librarian's assistant despite being developmentally disabled.

"Please never let him see the light of day, again," she implored the judge.

Brian Askew, Adrienne's nephew, recalled watching as an 8-year-old boy when his father broke down in tears after a phone call notified him of his sister's death. His father, who he said felt "tremendous amounts of guilt" for allowing his sister to live alone after their mother's death, passed away before Thomas was caught.

"When I think how my dad would've reacted, I get emotional," Askew said outside the courtroom.

The killings appeared to stop in 1989, the year Thomas took a job in the state workers' compensation agency in Glendale.

The Westside Rapist faded from public memory and authorities made limited progress in the Claremont killings until 2004, when the LAPD matched male DNA taken from two of the crime scenes. The final break in the case came in October 2008, when two officers collected DNA from Thomas while trying to identify the so-called Grim Sleeper serial killer, who was linked to homicides in South Los Angeles starting in the 1980s.

Several months later, detectives learned that Thomas' genetic profile matched DNA evidence from four of the killings he admitted in court Friday.

The detectives who investigated the case, LAPD Dets. Richard Bengston and Rick Jackson, said they continue to receive calls and emails from the relatives of other women raped and killed around the same time as Thomas' victims, asking if there is progress in finding out what happened in their cases.

"These families, they don't forget," Jackson said. "They want the answer."

Photos: California's most notorious killers

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-westside-rapist-20110402,0,1832775.story?track=rss

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Costco shoppers credited with helping save toddler left in sweltering car

Police are crediting good Samaritans with helping save a 14-month-old girl left unattended in a car for 10 minutes Thursday while the temperature in the vehicle hit 115 degrees.

The incident occurred at the parking lot of a Costco at 1051 W. Burbank Blvd.

A concerned shopper spotted the baby sleeping and sweating inside the car and noticed that no parents were around, prompting her to call police.

When police arrived at the store's parking lot, they found the baby and discovered the car's doors were locked, Burbank Police Sgt. Robert Quesada.

The car's windows were rolled down slightly, so officers tried reaching into the car to unlock it, he said. A good Samaritan with petite arms offered to help police and was able to slip her arm inside the cabin to unlock the door, Quesada said. Police removed the baby from the car and poured cold water on her head to keep her cool, Quesada said.

Police identified the man as Edik Magardomyan, 38, of Glendale.

Burbank Fire Department paramedics examined the toddler and determined that she was uninjured. Police placed the father under arrest after he returned to the vehicle. The girl was taken to the Burbank police station and officials said she would be released to the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services, Quesada said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/costco-shoppers-credited-with-helping-save-toddler-left-in-sweltering-car-.html

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OPINION

Immigration: Review of jail fingerprint sharing program underway

An outside expert has been hired to review the Secure Communities program.

A statistician has been brought in and is working with Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which investigates complaints and assists in policy evaluations. Both are said to be looking at data already collected.

Under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Program, state and local police must check the immigration status of people who have been arrested and booked into local jails by matching fingerprints against federal databases for criminal convictions and deportation orders.

Secure Communities has come under scrutiny over the last two months, after thousands of documents, including internal agency memos, were made public indicating officials were unsure if cities and counties were required to participate, or could opt out.

Concerns were also fueled by DHS own numbers that indicate more than half of the 87,534 immigrants deported under the program had minor or no criminal records, even though the program was aimed a dangerous criminals.

Secure communities was launched in late 2008. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is asking Congress for $184 million to expand the program in fiscal year 2012.

Napolitano is right to seek outside help in crunching the numbers. It would help bring transparency and could quell critics.

Immigrant and civil rights groups oppose the program because of concerns it encourages racial profiling and pretextual arrests. At the same time, some local police chiefs and sheriffs have said they worry the program will damage their efforts at community policing in cities with large immigration populations.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/03/immigration-review-of-jail-fingerprint-sharing-program-underway.html

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From the New York Times

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U.S. Starts Inquiry in Miami Police Shootings

MIAMI — The Justice Department has opened an inquiry into seven fatal shootings of suspects by Miami police officers since last July, according to a letter sent to a Miami congresswoman.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich responded to a request made in February by Representative Frederica S. Wilson, a Democrat, who wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. asking for a federal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting deaths of the seven suspects. Two of the men were unarmed.

In a letter dated Thursday, Mr. Weich said the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division would “carefully review the information you have provided to determine what, if any, action is appropriate.”

The development may increase the pressure on the Miami police chief, Miguel A. Exposito, whose judgment and leadership have been challenged by several city commissioners and victims' family members. Mr. Exposito has defended his officers, saying they shoot only when they believe their lives are in danger.

The killings of the six men and a 16-year-old boy occurred between July and February. One officer shot two suspects to death within nine days.

Some city leaders and community activists have raised questions about whether race was a motive in any of the shootings. All the officers are Hispanic; all those killed were black. The state attorney's office in Miami is investigating the shootings. In addition, a former F.B.I. agent, Paul Philip, is investigating the chief's public safety record at the request of the Miami city manager, Tony E. Crapp Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/us/02miami.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

The Truth About American Muslims

At the Justice Department, it's called the post-Sept. 11 backlash — the steady stream of more than 800 cases of violence and discrimination suffered by American Muslims at the hands of know-nothing abusers. These continuing hate crimes were laid bare at a valuable but barely noticed Senate hearing last week that provided welcome contrast to Representative Peter King's airing of his xenophobic allegation that the Muslim-American community has been radicalized.

Offering federal data rather than mythic scapegoating of an easy political target, the Senate hearing focused on the fact that while Muslims make up 1 percent of the population, they are victims in 14 percent of religious discrimination cases. These range from homicides and mosque burnings to job, school and zoning law abuses, according to the Justice Department.

In running the hearing, Senator Richard Durbin tried to set the record straight about the patriotism of a vast majority of American-Muslim citizens and the continuing assaults on their civil rights. He warned against the “guilt by association” whipped up by Mr. King's broadsides — that there are “too many mosques” in the nation, that most of them are extremist, and that American Muslim leaders have failed to cooperate with law enforcement against home-grown terrorism.

It was former President George W. Bush who first warned against turning on Muslim Americans after Sept. 11, 2001, stressing the fact that Islam is “a faith based upon love, not hate,” regardless of the religious veneer the fanatics of 9/11 tried to attach to their atrocities. Since then, American Muslims have served as the largest source of tips to authorities tracking terror suspects, according to a recent university study.

The Senate hearing was not designed as a full refutation of Representative King's wild thesis, but it put a more human and factual face on a community that has been badly slurred. Mr. King is promising more committee haymakers. This is unfortunate. At least Mr. Durbin's hearing made clear that the nation's struggle against terrorism is best served by information, not dark generalizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/opinion/02sat2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the Miami Herald

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Choking ‘game' can be deadly, Broward parents warned

by IHOSVANI RODRIGUEZ

Sun Sentinel

Within seconds, the boy is passed out and his friends scramble to wake him up.

The disturbing video is among dozens like it posted on YouTube, and experts say they are increasing in popularity and volume.

Activists fear the videos are helping fuel the resurgence of an old and dangerous game among teenagers that goes by dozens of names but is most commonly referred to as the choking game or passing out game.

At least 100 youths across the nation have died from the choking game since 1985, but many experts believe those numbers are much higher because many of the deaths are ruled accidents or suicide.

After learning that a number of her students were routinely playing the game, Krista Herrera, the principal at Glades Middle School in Miramar, launched an awareness campaign for parents.

“It's called the choking game, but it's not a game,” she said. “We went around asking our children and we were surprised by how much they freely admitted to playing it and how they had nothing to fear.”

Parents at Glades Middle School this week got an automated phone message from Herrera urging them to learn more about the game. Herrera said teens have been playing similar games for decades, but social media and YouTube videos are bringing the under-the-radar games into the forefront.

“It's not only the fact that these videos are out there, but that these videos are glorifying the game,” she said.

Joseph De Varona, a junior at Everglades High School, said he has known about the game since he was in middle school. However, he admitted being surprised by the Internet videos.

“It used to be something we just kept hush-hush,” he said. “Now it's all out there.”

Video after video shows teens purposely hyperventilating and then allowing others to “choke” them until they pass out. Some of the videos are basic “how to” productions, teaching the choking method, while others show teens — mainly boys — using chokeholds made popular by wrestlers and mixed-martial arts fighters.

The choking game should not be confused with erotic asphyxiation, which is a similar practice restricting oxygen flow to the brain and mostly performed by adults for sexual pleasure. Those who play the choking game are doing it solely for the euphoria that can result.

At Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital in Hollywood, emergency room doctor Peter Antevy said within the past six months he's noticed a spike in the number of cases of teens coming in with bloodshot eyes, marks on their necks and complaining of headaches.

“They won't tell you they were playing, but the signs are there,” he said. “We have had kids come here who are basically dead, and their parents have no idea their kids had been playing these games.”

Stephen Cina, deputy chief at the Broward Medical Examiner's Office, said his staffers are aware of the choking game's increased popularity among youths but said he doesn't believe there have been any local deaths attributed to the game.

According to a 2008 report compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100 youths across the nation have died from the choking game since 1985. The count is based on news reports and advocacy organizations. Most who died were boys, at an average age of about 13.

The website for the nonprofit group G.A.S.P., which stands for Games Adolescents Shouldn't Play, estimates that 250 to 1,000 young people die in the United States and Canada each year because of the game, though most are reported as suicides. The website can be found at www.gaspinfo.com.

At least seven minors have died in Central Florida under circumstances resembling suicides since 2000, but later determined to be the result of choking games. That includes the death of David Cody Hudson, just 12, who died after his sisters found him unconscious on his bedroom floor with a karate belt tied around his neck in 2007 in Leesburg.

The parents of Izaac d'Aquin in Miami-Dade have created a memorial website after they say their son died in October because of the game. The site, www.izaacdaquinauguste.blogspot.com, contains numerous links for parents to learn more about the game and warning signs.

In a Facebook message, the boy's father, Santiago Dobles, wrote that the family was still too torn by the tragedy to comment.

Principal Herrera said she launched her campaign after recently discovering that a student at her school had posted photos on Facebook of herself being “choked out.” The principal called the child's mother, who had never heard of the game. Herrera also spoke to the child.

“I told her, ‘You don't have the right to make your mother cry,'?” she said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/31/2144343/choking-game-can-be-deadly-broward.html

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From Google News

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Arizona march puts spotlight on shootings by border patrol

The march in Douglas, Ariz., aims to draw attention to a teen who was shot by a border patrol agent while trying to climb the international fence. The agent was being pelted by rocks.

by Lourdes Medrano, Staff writer

April 1, 2011

A march in the Arizona border town of Douglas Friday seeks to highlight what activists call the increasing use excessive and sometimes lethal force against illegal immigrants and even Hispanic citizens in rock-throwing incidents.

The march is to place candles and flowers at the stretch of the border fence where Carlos Lamadrid was shot and killed March 21. Mr. Lamadrid was fleeing toward the international boundary in a pickup truck carrying 48 pounds of marijuana when, as he attempted to climb a ladder placed against the fence, a border patrol agent opened fire, according to the Cochise County Sheriff's Department.

The agent, whose name is being withheld, reported that he fired shots after being pelted with rocks. A man “was on top of the border fence and was observed throwing rocks at the border patrol agent,” a sheriff's department statement notes, but spokeswoman Carol Capas says it was not Lamadrid.

Lamadrid is the third teen in a year to die in incidents that reportedly involved border patrol agents and rock-throwing. In June, a 15-year-old Mexican boy was shot by an agent after a group tried to illegally enter El Paso, Texas, and in January, a 17-year-old died after falling off the border wall in Nogales, Ariz., reportedly after being shot by border patrol agents.

The National Border Patrol Council says agents have a right to defend themselves. “When rocks are thrown at us, that is considered deadly force,” union spokesman Shawn Moran says and adds that such assaults have severely injured border patrol agents.

But rock-throwing is a pretext that poorly trained agents use to justify inadequate responses to varying levels of threats in border communities, critics say.

If Lamadrid was believed to be involved in illegal activity, he should have had his day in court, says Jennifer Allen, the leader of a Tucson human-rights group, Border Action Network. “Agents are not supposed to be judge, jury and executioner,” she adds.

Officials with the border patrol and the FBI, which is conducting a joint investigation with the sheriff's department, won't discuss the case. A 17-year-old who also was riding in the truck was arrested at the scene, Ms. Capas says. He faces several drug-related charges.

“The community is very upset over the shooting,” says Angelita Nuñez, a local activist.

Lamadrid's family is holding the march and speaking out about the incident because they don't want anyone else to die as his nephew did, says Javier Teran, one of Lamadrid's uncles.

“The family still can't assimilate what happened that day,” he adds.

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/374209

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Secretary Napolitano's Remarks on Border Security and Facilitating Legal Travel and Trade

April 1, 2011

WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today delivered remarks highlighting the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) unprecedented efforts to strengthen security while facilitating legal travel and trade along the Southwest border .

“Security and economic prosperity represent two sides of the same coin,” said Secretary Napolitano. “We are committed to further strengthening our border security efforts, which will reinforce and help expand legal trade and travel in the border region.”

During her remarks, Secretary Napolitano underscored the Department's historic efforts to strengthen border security through the Southwest Border Initiative, launched in March 2009— which includes increasing the number of Border Patrol agents from approximately 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,700 today; doubling the number of personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces; and deploying more than a quarter of all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to the Southwest border region—the most ever.

Secretary Napolitano also highlighted the unprecedented collaboration between the United States and Mexico to bolster cooperation on law enforcement, intelligence sharing and joint operations along the Southwest border. The Department has increased joint training programs with Mexican law enforcement agencies and, for the first time in history, Border Patrol agents are coordinating joint operations along the Southwest border with Mexican Federal Police to combat human trafficking and smuggling in both nations.

Last week, Secretary Napolitano visited El Paso, Texas, where she joined Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sanchez, CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin and regional mayors to discuss ways to continue to facilitate commerce along the Southwest border and spread the message that the border region is open for business.

The Obama administration has made great strides in facilitating legal trade and travel across the border —working with local leaders to update infrastructure and reduce wait times at our Southwest border ports of entry while increasing security. More than 1,700 private-sector partners in Mexico are enrolled in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) trusted-shipper program, and CBP is deploying 250 new officers to ports along the border as a result of the FY 2010 Border Security Supplemental. These investments have yielded concrete results, with imports crossing the Southwest border into the United States increasing 22 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010.

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1301671523877.shtm

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